Ambition can lead to downfall

This is an old essay I submitted last year for bonus marks.
About Hilter, MacBeth and ambition leading to downfall.

Frightnight hopefully tomorrow!


Ambition can lead to Downfall
Macbeth~Hitler

By: Amy Huang


Many people have goals or hopes that they wish to accomplish. Some may desire prosperity and riches while others may dream of powerful jobs or positions. These people have ambition that helps them achieve satisfaction. It is usually the compelling force which leads many people towards success, however, the results may sometimes be harmful.

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, his ambition drives him to kill many people and carry out deceit and murder. His overwhelming desire to become king has led him to commit treason and murder King Duncan. In order to protect himself and appear sinless, Macbeth continues to kill anyone that might have the slightest suspicion against him (including his best friend, Banquo). The Witches remind him of his dreams and goals that he had already hoped to accomplish and his wife Lady Macbeth was only trying to help him be happy and see the prophecy fulfilled. If Macbeth was innocent of ambition in any way, neither of those two groups would have been able to make the least bit influence on him, nor would his feelings have been so easily manipulated.

Without his impetuous ambition Duncan would not have needed to be murdered, Lady Macbeth's guilty conscience would not have led her to her death and Macbeth would have been living contently as Thane of Glamis and Cawdor. Shakespeare is telling us that if our ambition goes unchecked, it will lead to our demise. Macbeth's downfall is mostly due to a sense of over-confidence and uncontrollable ambition, which was his tragic flaw. Since his greed for power was his main focus, he becomes foolish in the end because he neglects to see what is really going on around him. After losing his sight of goals as well as his sanity, Macbeth forgets who he used to be. He becomes careless and ends up killing anyone who gets in his way.

In 1919-1945, Adolf Hitler was a Nazi leader who met his downfall attempting to gain great power and land all over Europe. He signed a treaty with Russia to keep them from interfering and then once he got as much ground as he could take, invaded Russia for more land- even after having signed a peace agreement. Hitler is used to show how his aggressive personality led to failure and eventually his death. He wanted as much land and power as possible and would stop at nothing until he achieved it. For a while it seemed to be working and he did gain power over much of Europe but his actions eventually caught up to him. He became obsessed with trying to destroy the Jewish Race, trying to take over so much land, and achieving great power that eventually his over-confidence overtook him and he was defeated. He decided to take his own life rather than to be taken prisoner by the Allies.

Hitler starts out as good, and his traits gradually become worse and worse, until he turns totally evil. In the last year of his tyranny, he was planning on completely taking over the world. After the downfall of his power, Hitler was very angry that he could have been ruler of the world, but he missed his chance. Hilter had worked for years to achieve so far, and then ends it all by killing himself and giving up. This foreshadows what will happen to Macbeth. He works hard to kill everyone else, when the dangerous one (Macduff) is right in front of his face. Macbeth does not realize it until it is too late and eventually forfeits gives up the battle, as well as his life.

Even though they both have had many victories and were later are defeated, they chose different actions to gain power, and later fight their downfall. Macbeth’s actions were mostly due to his reckless ambition, while Hitler’s are because of his intense greed and desire. Both of them chose actions that resulted in terrible consequences. The key to Hitler and Macbeth’s success was their ability to manipulate others. They were both very adept in persuading people to meet their demands to do their work. These two men have succeeded in influencing their followers so that they honestly believe that terrible acts such as killing innocents were necessary. Hitler and Macbeth both appeared to be good initially but gave in to the temptations, became spiteful, and were inevitably conquered.

Macbeth and Hitler have both committed crimes of the highest degree- blackmail, treason, murder for their own self serving, selfish intentions. I acknowledge that while the blame of their downfall rests on their shoulders alone, the lure of ambition was perhaps too strong a temptation for these men. They had both wished to accomplish and do much good in the world, but the over-confidence and rashness had succeeded their honest intentions. Becoming overly ambitious has often been the cause of downfall for many leaders in the past and these two great men were no different.